A New Baby

We had an exciting event today. One of 'my girls' had her baby today. Heather had a baby girl, Aubriella Noel. I was invited to attend the birth and got a phone call at about 6:30am saying it was happening. I went to work for a couple of hours and had Sue arrange my schedule so I could be there for the birth. Heather had a home birth and was more comfortable without any extra people in the room during the birth so I didn't actually get to see her bring born, but got to say hello to little Aubriella right afterwards. What a sweetie... and doesn't that look like red hair??? We'll know in a day or two.



She even got her first adjustment at 2 hours old.

Bear Cabin

Once a year, my quilting group goes to Show Low, AZ for a quilt retreat. Last week was the week! It is called Bear Cabin and it is so much fun. Carol is the best host and makes everyone feel welcome and cared for. We did alot of sewing, alot of laughing and alot of eating! My friend, Julie and I drove together because we both had to work half day and weren't able to leave as early as everyone else. It takes about 3.5 hours to get there. After saying hello to everyone, we set up our machines and started sewing. Here are a few pictures of the activities around the room.
It's a wonderful place for sewing. The light is wonderful and the atmosphere is friendly and warm. The weather was beautiful.. just a little chilly but sunny and perfect.

Maggie, the Bear Cabin Mascot

We took Maggie for a couple of walks out in the forest to stretch after sitting for too long and Carol fed us 3 wonderful meals a day (Carol is a great cook!). Who could ask for more?!?

This is the group. We were there from Thursday afternoon to Sunday noon. It went by so fast, I can't wait till next year!

My Quilts

I've posted 117 of my quilts on Flickr. Here is the address if you're interested!

New Tree

We're just full of projects! This summer while Landon was visiting, the boys put steps on the side of the house by the greenhouse. For years, there was just a rickety old board with steps on it to climb that little hill. More than one person fell on that 'ladder'. So, now we have beautiful steps there. A couple weeks ago Damian got a backhoe and dug out an area on the side of the steps for a tree and a little seating area. He planted the tree today and now I can see some real potential for the east side of the house.
It's a mimosa tree so eventually we will have a nice shady area. There will be pavers around the tree and block walls around the dug out walls... some nice flowers and bushes.. I'm lovin' it.

Office Remodel

We are remodeling the office! YAY! We haven't done much with the building in many years so it's about time some things change. So.. we're adding another massage room and we moved the front desk to the middle of the room. We also made the kids room smaller so we'd have a little more space in the waiting room since we made it so much narrower by moving the front desk. Alan built two small walls on the east side of the room as a divider for a little more privacy for the massage rooms. All the wall changes are done and the drywall and texturing is now finished. We are doing different lights in the ceiling (getting rid of those ugly flourescent lights) and the popcorn ceiling has been scraped. Electrical/lighting is next, then painting and flooring. I'm SOOOOO excited about the changes! It already looks better, doesn't it!

County Fair 2009

Well, It's that time of year again. County Fair! When the kids were little, we spent lots of time preparing for the fair. We always submitted tons of stuff from artwork to photographs to quilts. The kids always made some spending cash to spend at the fair and complained about having to look at EVERYTHING in the exhibit rooms before I would let them go to the rides. But.. they have some great memories about the county fair.

It really isn't the same now as when my kids were little. The fair has moved to another building that isn't even close to Prescott. In fact, it's kinda out in the middle of nowhere.. probably 15 miles from Prescott but only about 5 miles from our house. Anyway, I think people just aren't as excited about the fair as they were 20 years ago and there are way fewer entries in all the exhibit halls. However, I still enter quilts in the fair and for the last 4 or 5 years, my friend Jennifer and I do the quilt display in the Homemaking department. So, that's where I was today.

We took this pile of quilts......
And put together this nice display of quilts.
I entered 3 quilts. See if you can guess which are mine. They all got blue ribbons.

This quilt won the Rosette for best quilt and I think it deserves it. What a gorgeous quilt!

I made this little quilt and donated it to the fair for them to raffle off for a little extra money to buy upgrades on the displays in the Homemaking department. All of the tables and racks are at least 25 years old and very worn. We donated a quilt last year and they were able to get some much needed poles to hang quilts on this year.

Summertime Mini Quilt Received

I received my quilt from the Summertime Mini Quilt Swap. It was from a lady in Wisconsin. I think it's very cute. There is another Mini Quilt exchange going on now for a fall quilt but I haven't signed up for it yet. I'm still thinking about it, but I always like fall quilts... the colors, the leaves.. it's such a nice time of the year. Ok... I think I just talked myself into it.

Labor Day on Mingus

This Labor Day, Alan and Doc and I decided to go on a bike ride on Mingus Mountain. It's only about a half hour from our house, so we just packed a backpack with lunch and headed out.
There had been a fire there recently so there were some trees that hadn't lost their needles yet, but very few dead trees. It wasn't a bad fire and just burned the underbrush mostly.. so still a nice place to ride.

Doc found some mud puddles to run through, too.

After our ride, we didn't really want to go home yet, so we decided to explore an old forest road we'd never been on before.

We passed a really nice view of Jerome from the top of Mingus. You never see Jerome from this angle, so I was happy to get this picture. You can see the red hills of Sedona in the background.

The road started to get pretty bad... no wonder... it ended quite abruptly at a big dirt pile. Good thing though.. because there wasn't a road on the other side of the dirt pile.

There was also no place to turn around so Alan had to back the truck up a LONG ways. Doc and I decided to get out and walk awhile.

We passed this smiley face rock. I SOOOO wanted to bring it home, but it was just too heavy. Besides probably being illegal to take it out of the forest.

Alan let Doc run all the way back to the highway. He loved it..

Almost home and Doc knows it. He could probably smell our house from there.

Quilt Exchange

I have been involved in a couple of Mini Quilt Swaps. I signed up for them on the Quilting Gallery website here. The first one was a Springtime Quilt Exchange. I made this quilt and sent it off to Corry vanden Broek in the Netherlands. She put some pictures of it on her blog which I thought was very nice and it looks great in her house. You can see her blog here.

Then I joined the Summertime Mini Quilt Exchange. I finished it today and will send it off soon to a lady in Canada. I hope she likes it! I think it came out really cute and it was great fun to do. I've made lots of Mariner's Compass quilts but this one was a little different with all of the different layers in the circle. Here is a picture of it.

Michelle from Canada received my quilt and loves it. She put it on her blog. You can see it here.

I sure do like quilting!!

Landon Wedding

We made a trip to Washington last week for Landon and Tracy's wedding. We got there a week early so we could help them get some things done before the big occasion. We got there on Sunday afternoon and Landon picked us up in his VW bus. He's very proud of his bus and it's been a long time since I rode in one. I'd forgotten how loud they are when you're sitting in the back seat. But.. here we are riding to Landon's house.



The first project that was needed was building a patio in their back yard. The men started working on it the next morning early. They had to put down gravel, level it, then put down a layer of sand, level it, then set the block in a pattern that Tracy picked out. It took 3 days and was pretty hard work, but when it was done, it looked beautiful.

The project that Tracy had for me to do was make these cool pillows for her living room furniture. Tracy and Landon had recovered these sofas and did an excellent job. I'm working on a quilt for their living room using the same yellow/orange/red color theme. You can see it hanging over the banister behind the sofa. I'll post a picture of it when it's finished.



Tracy's Aunt Sue was at their house the whole week before we got there and was busy working on all sorts of things preparing for the wedding. She did all of the flower arranging, too.

Two nights before the wedding, the men went out to a bachelor party so us girls stayed home and had a party of our own. We had shots called Chocolate Cake which was delicious and drank lots of wine. Tracy said it was a wine tasting to decide which wines they wanted to serve at the reception, but I'm not sure our input was very helpful. We just wanted to laugh...
They had their rehersal dinner in their back yard. Tracy's mom, Linda, made a yummy vegetarian lasagna to feed all these people. I hardly did any cooking while I was there because Linda and Aunt Sue did most of it. I'm glad.. they're good cooks!

The morning of the wedding, after all of the odds and ends of preparation were completed, the girls went to a hotel to get themselves ready and this is what the guys did.... played POKER!

The wedding was at a park on the Colombia River. We just set up chairs and put some flowers and tulle along the edges of the rows. It was simple, but very nice. There were about 50 people there for the wedding.

Alan and Landon walked me down the isle. Aren't my men handsome...

Landon, watching Tracy walk down the isle.
Landon and Tracy during the ceremony. I'd say they were pretty happy....

Mr. and Mrs. Landon Beeson